Fic: dream a dream (and what you see will be) - mizzy2k - PART 1
dream a dream (and what you see will be)
mizzy2k
#
Bastian made many other wishes, and had many other amazing adventures - before he finally returned to the ordinary world. But that's... another story.
#
Apparently secrets aren't the only thing Dominic Cobb will attempt to extract.
#
Ariadne still considers herself a rookie to the whole dreamsharing business.
Everything is strange to her. Militarizing someone's subconscious. Setting up a heist in someone's brain to steal their deepest secrets. Recreating people's fantasies. Inception. It's all really bizarre.
So when Cobb comes up with something even a consummate extractor might think odd, Ariadne doesn't notice at first.
"There's a girl. Amelia. Nine years old," Cobb starts. "A few years she was diagnosed with NICCD - neonatal intrahepatic cholestasis caused by citrin deficiency-"
"Liver disease," Yusuf interrupts, before Eames' confused face settles into the more hostile expression he wears when Cobb gets polysyllabic on them.
"Yes. That." Cobb scratches his nose, like he always does when someone derails him. "It happens sometimes in adults that symptoms of citrullinemia... Yusuf?"
"A genetic disease that causes ammonia and toxins to build up in the blood," Yusuf says.
Ariadne smiles at him to let him know she's impressed. The smile he sends back is a little strained. Ariadne's smile softens, and she looks back at Cobb. One day she'll understand why Yusuf prefers making chemicals in the back of dirty warehouses and running a highly illegal dreamden, when he could so very easily be a high-paid doctor.
She files the mystery in the back of her head, and tries to think about what this mission could be about. Cobb's never started a briefing with a medical report before, but that doesn't mean it's anything weird in the dreamsharing world.
"It's so rare for NICCD sufferers to get the citrullinemia symptoms so quickly that... the parents missed it. Amelia fell into a coma two months ago." Cobb temples his fingers, leans back against the nearest table, and looks at them seriously. "The doctors realized immediately what was wrong with her and treated her."
"So what's the problem?" Arthur asks. Ariadne looks in his direction. He's frowning slightly, his pen and moleskin in his lap. She can see his neat handwriting, citrullinemia (sp?) and medical extraction? and coma heavily underlined.
That's Ariadne's first clue that there's something different about this job. She doesn't think she's ever seen Arthur underline things in his moleskin.
She settles in to listen to Cobb's answer, hyper alert now that there might be something strange going on.
"She didn't wake up," Cobb says.
"So... the doctors cocked something up?" Eames asks. He's leaning back in his lawn chair, looking for all the world like he might be on some sunny veranda in an exotic European location, not on a second-hand lawnchair in a grimy Californian warehouse. "Medical extraction. I'll be a nurse." He leers a little at Arthur. "You'd be my patient. Pain in the ass, right?"
"Don't be gauche," Arthur mutters.
"Would I?" Eames asks in an injured tone, throwing his best angelic look Arthur's way.
"Yes," Ariadne says, at the same time as Arthur does. Arthur's mouth twitches. It's the closest he comes during briefings to a grin, so Ariadne takes it as one and grins back.
"And the pain in the ass would be you, I'd imagine," Yusuf tells Eames. Arthur makes a choking sound and Eames looks delighted for a second.
"Mr. Cobb, the children are ganging up on me," Eames sing-songs.
Cobb sighs and shakes his head and ignores them. "I've checked and double checked the medical reports. Sent it to the usual sources. Nada. Amelia's clinically healthy. She should be waking up."
All levity in the room drops. Eames' face is a question mark. Ariadne's stomach flutters. There's the second sign this is not a regular dreamsharing job. Ariadne has to take her cues from the professionals. She folds her arms and waits to see what Cobb's about to say.
"So we're..." Eames sounds out his thoughts. "Extracting Amelia from herself?"
He sounds unsure of himself. Clue three: this is really not regular extractor stuff at all. It's one of Ariadne's best cues to deciphering the dreamsharing world: If Eames hasn't done something with a PASIV, it's either boring, so beyond ridiculously dangerous that even a gambler wouldn't touch it, or strangely out of the norm.
"We've done it before," Arthur says gently, into the silence. Eames looks at him, surprised. Arthur throws him a smug look for a moment. "We shouldn't need anything more than a dream-within-a-dream."
"Damn," Yusuf says, "I was looking forward to trying out a new compound."
"We may need one anyway," Cobb says. "Amelia's on a certain amount of medication. We need a compound that won't interfere with the medication she's on. I've got a meeting set up with the parents in an hour. I'll text you the list when I get it."
"I should still be able to start work, I know some of the major therapies, and what will be contraindicated," Yusuf says. "Arthur, there'll be some equipment I need, will you be able to work your magic?"
"It's called the Internet, Yusuf," Arthur says, getting to his feet and reaching over for the laptop, "and one day you will know its many mysteries for yourself."
"And when Arthur's installed you a robust antivirus on that decrepit machine you call a desktop, Yusuf," Eames says, "then I will link you to all the free porn."
Arthur stills and glances sideways at Eames. "Violence is wasted on you," Arthur informs him, after a pause, before continuing over to the set of tables Yusuf had already claimed as his own.
"Love," Eames says, sarcasm lacing the epithet, "it's always so charming to work alongside you."
"Your condescension, as always, is much appreciated, Eames, thank you," Arthur calls back, winking at Ariadne. Ariadne smothers her grin and edges a look at Eames, who looks torn between pitching a fit and laughing.
Cobb's pinning up some information on their board, some research about the illness along with a picture of Amelia. Ariadne moves over to look at it, feeling a little bit unsure. It's mostly because the architecture hasn't been discussed yet. Ariadne likes to be prepared on their jobs, usually because Cobb never estimates the time they'll have properly. Or he just enjoys putting them all under pressure because he's sadistic... or that's his management style.
If the latter, his management style is rubbish.
Ariadne hopes he's just trying to make her be a bit more forward, so tries the proactive approach. "So... do you have any ideas about the architecture or are you waiting to see Amelia in person?" she asks.
"I've already got the plans for this one," Cobb tells her. Ariadne freezes for a moment, feeling suddenly and terribly insecure. She swallows it back down. She really doesn't want to remind Cobb how young and inexperienced she is. She's replaceable, after all. Cobb doesn't seem to notice her moment of crestfallen angst, because he continues, "I thought you might like to come to the meeting with me."
"Seriously?"
Cobb looks pleased at her burst of disbelief. "A female voice might be a better approach."
"So you only want me for my voice," Ariadne says, mock-dolefully, "well, I've had worse pick-up lines."
Cobb, predictably, flusters at that. "I- we- you-"
"Relax, she's messing with you." They both look to see Arthur looking at them both, the internet dongle in his hand. Ariadne shoots him an apologetic look - it's her fault for leaving it in the laptop bag, not attached to the laptop. "He's right about the female interaction. Considering the sensitivity and type of the extraction, it needs an empathetic pitch. Two men might be too hostile."
Ariadne nods.
"Although," Arthur adds, leaning in, his hands behind his back, twining the cable of the dongle between his fingers, "I'd be a little paranoid that Cobb just wants someone who won't interrupt him when he's trying to be melodramatic."
"Hey," Cobb says.
"He does like to be melodramatic," Ariadne intones.
"I'm standing right here," Cobb mutters.
"He's adorable when he's being micromanaged," Ariadne muses to Arthur, like Cobb isn't actually there. Although it would be wasted if he wasn't.
"I don't micromanage," Arthur says, "I backseat extract."
Ariadne rolls her eyes. "Specificity, shmecificity."
Arthur gifts her one of his rare, small smiles, and then looks at Cobb, seriously. "Be empathetic," he says, "and stick to the point. Don't be too dramatic. This is a child, not a billion dollar secret."
"Yes, mother," Cobb says.
"Melodramatic," Arthur says to Ariadne in a fake conspiratorial tone before waving the dongle at them in a 'this is why I'm moving away now' gesture.
"I've never met with a client before," Ariadne says. A terrible thought strikes her. "Do I have to wear a suit? I don't own a suit. Well, I did own a suit once for my college interviews, but even then it wasn't exactly business friendly attire, I wore it down into the hotel level in the Fischer job but dreamed it as a skirt when it was really a skort, I-"
"Arthur babbled before his first client meeting too," Cobb says, looking down at her. "You'll be fine."
"Arthur babbled?" Ariadne says, because she can't help herself. "Wow. I guess you can't always know everything about everyone you work with."
It's a light-hearted observation. It doesn't explain why Cobb suddenly goes cold and withdrawn for a moment. Ariadne follows his gaze over to where Arthur's pushing in the dongle and connecting to the variable signal that plagues their warehouse.
"We'd best get a move on," Cobb says. He sounds a little distant, but he moves for the door before Ariadne can mention it. She takes another look over at Arthur, tapping away efficiently as Yusuf looks on in wonder, like what Arthur does is actually magic.
Then again, they walk around in people's dreams. Anything's possible.
Ariadne smiles to herself and follows Cobb out of the warehouse to the car.
#
Their client's sitting room is clean, if a little sparse. There's little hint of personality, and the walls and the furnishings are all magnolia. Even the light fitting is magnolia.
It's just too much bland for Ariadne.
Cobb's still explaining the procedure to Amelia's parents, but Ariadne's overwhelmed by the whole concept. She excuses herself and waits in the hallway, listening to Cobb's muffled voice, reassuring and charming as he explains the process to them.
Ariadne keeps her head down, and considers looking at the past half an hour again in the PASIV later, to see if she's as much a coward as she thinks she is for wandering out. Memories aren't as terrible for solo dreams as for shared ones, and Ariadne loves to be able to walk amongst them, relive the better ones, and expunge the negatives ones in belated catharsis. It's better than therapy.
Suddenly Ariadne realizes why they're even doing this job. It's something even a therapist can't do. The implications of dreamshare are staggering, which is probably why it's all so very illegal.
Cobb's persuasive voice is a low soundtrack in the background. It's nothing but guilt that leaves Ariadne stranded out here in the narrow hallway, twisting her hair around one finger, casting uneasy glances down the corridor to where Amelia lies in her coma.
Lost, the doctors have been saying, inside her own head.
Amelia's parents are old college friends of Mal's, and it wasn't as if the job was an impossible one - Arthur said they'd done this before. Ariadne's slightly appalled at herself for going along with Cobb for that reason alone. Last time he said that, they nearly all ended up as vegetables, lost in limbo.
Of course, that's the thought that brings it all home for Ariadne. She was a single bad decision away from ending up like Amelia.
It's morbid curiosity that leads Ariadne up the small hallway and away from Cobb's low, entreating tones. Their house is much like the one Ariadne grew up in; three bedrooms, magnolia paint on the walls, the whole place a blank canvas for imagination to take flight.
Ariadne trails her fingers lightly against the wall as she casually explores. She knows which room Amelia is in. Amelia. Even the name is ringing against the inside of her skull, a skip and a step away from her own name. Ariadne's always had a fanciful imagination. Her childhood home was as bland as this house, and Ariadne's mother let Ariadne choose the decorations for her own room, provided she did the decorating herself. So Ariadne did. She made over her room once a month, spending her allowance on paint and pens, imagining and re-imagining cities and dreamscapes, never realising that form of creation was nowhere near as pure as the PASIV would allow her in the not-so-distant future.
Amelia's just a girl, in a house like Ariadne grew up in, stuck in her own brain without even the experience of limbo beforehand to temper the terror of it. Ariadne sometimes has the plummeting feeling that experiencing limbo might be worth it. It only takes remembering the sunken, horrified expression Cobb gets when something reminds him of Mal to wipe that fancy away.
She's so focussed on the parallels of her life and Amelia's that by the time Ariadne gets to the doorway she and Cobb passed earlier, Ariadne is actually startled to see the young Amelia in bed. Amelia looks younger than nine years old, but her parents have no reason to lie; she has a fuzzy halo of blonde hair and a peaceful expression on her blank, pale face.
Ariadne's heart contracts at the sight of her, arranged like she might be in a coffin, with tubes forcing breath into her and machines counting her heartbeats, and immediately Ariadne just feels ashamed at thinking of her own relief at surviving in face of Amelia's suffering.
Ariadne has always hated being scared of anything, so she doesn't fall back; she goes into Amelia's room and sits down in one of the armchairs by Amelia's bed, and watches her breathe for a while with the aid of the machinery.
She wants to say something, because everyone knows comatose people should be talked to, just in case, but Ariadne has no idea what to say.
"Hi," she tries, "I'm Ariadne," but it doesn't feel like anywhere near enough. She casts around to see if Amelia has any interests. There are a lot of books, and one large hardcover is on the floor next to the bed. Ariadne bends and picks it up, smoothing her finger over the cover.
It's a first edition of The Neverending Story by Bastian Balthazar Bux. Ariadne can't help the smile that tugs her face. It was a huge hit when it came out, when Ariadne was small; a movie adaptation followed and Ariadne and all her friends went to see it ten times over. Most of her friends had a crush on Atreyu, but Ariadne liked small, brave Bastian the best. She empathised with him, wanting to escape into this fantasy tale rather than live real life.
"She loves that book."
Ariadne starts, and turns guiltily, her fingers clinging onto the edge of the book, not wanting to drop the treasured volume on top of being nosy and invasive. "I used to love it too," Ariadne says, smiling tentatively up at Amelia's mother, who's stood in the doorway, looking small and frail and so very sad. "I guess I was maybe more of a fan of the film, though."
"I'm glad you know of it."
Ariadne moves to get out of the chair.
"Oh, don't. Stay." Amelia's mother moves as if to put her hand on Ariadne's shoulder, but she pauses mid-way through the movement as if thinking better of it and looks at Ariadne awkwardly instead. "Read to her. She'd like that. I'm sure she gets tired of my silly old voice," Amelia's mother says, sinking onto the nearest stool to the door. She looks tired and her eyes stray over Amelia's body like it hurts to look at her. "Your boss says he's using the story as inspiration for Amelia's therapy. It sounds silly to someone like me."
"He didn't tell me that," Ariadne says, and flushes, because she shouldn't sound unprepared in front of a client. Amelia's mother smiles regardless. Maybe honesty is a comfort too. "Well, I can see how it would work. Turn Amelia's headspace into the fantasy world... and then open up a gate home. Get her to step through it."
It's clever. Ariadne looks at Amelia, and wonders how lost inside her head she actually is, and whether they'll be able to find her.
"You still sound doubtful."
Ariadne smiles, but it's tight and there's less comfort in it than she would like. "Well, it's not as easy as if Persephone was her favourite story. It would be easy to convince her that she's had her six months in Hades and it's time to come home for Spring."
"I don't particularly like the idea of Hades being anywhere in her head."
Ariadne falters. She was trying to be helpful. She'd always loved the story of Persephone; that love had overcome her reason. Cobb shouldn't have brought her. "If Cobb's finished, I should be going," Ariadne says.
"Your boss is passionate about his work."
"He is," Ariadne says, automatically, turning more fully in the chair to look at Amelia's mother, and if it keeps Amelia out of her line of vision, well, her mother doesn't have to know it's deliberate. "He's a father," she adds, not knowing what she's going to say but searching for the words regardless, "I think this type of work really strikes a chord. Like he's doing it in the hope that should he not be in this line of work, someone would do it for James or for Phillipa."
"And do you think you can do this for her?"
Ariadne looks back at Amelia, because looking at a torn and withered nine year old might make her sad, but it's suddenly better than looking at her mother, old before her time, worry scarring lines onto her face and tightening her jaw. "We're going to try our best."
There's a hesitant pat on her shoulder, and Ariadne looks up into the smiling face of Amelia's mother, and Ariadne smiles back, ignoring the moisture in her eyes, and then Cobb appears in the doorway and tells her it's time to go.
On the way to the car, he confirms they've been given the job. Ariadne's feeling a mixture of odd happiness and sadness. More relief than anything else. She rides that feeling. What they do is illegal, but if they can do good things like this, the definitely moral alongside the dubiously moral jobs, then maybe Ariadne will continue to be able to sleep at night.
She's feeling better about herself and the world than she has for a long time.
...and then she goes back to the warehouse and accidentally starts a fight.
#
The fight starts over a small thing-a cup of coffee.
Really it's about the lingering fear that Cobb's going to replace them all, or make one of them redundant, and Ariadne feels dreadful for starting it. And it's not a full-on fight-those, with their combined histories, involve at least one gun, and someone inevitably walks away with a black eye, and once it was Ariadne an hour before a huge exam and Miles was furious.
It's just one of their odd fights. There's been plenty of them over the year Ariadne's been working with this team of unique individuals. It normally starts with bickering and then really heavy silence until Eames makes an inappropriate and lewd joke, and then Arthur looks enraged and calls Eames terrible and makes a snit about civilised society, and Eames mutters about not even knowing what that is, present company included, and then Arthur breaks something and blames it on something else that isn't him and his inability to deal with emotions because they're something he can't control.
Cobb inevitably descends with his ever-increasing God complex (regaining his kids and performing inception to a positive end has been like a drug to Dominic Cobb) and Yusuf points out something perfectly reasonable which Ariadne shoots down because of how guilty she feels, and then everyone wanders around, sulking and feeling hurt, for hours, and the practice sessions don't go right at all.
And Ariadne hadn't meant to bring up the trigger point for most of their recent fights, except this job apparently doesn't need an architect-not if Cobb already has the plans-and she's addicted to the dreaming now. She can dream without the somnacin and the PASIV, but... her own dreams always seem a lot smaller now, and weirder. The idea of it all being snatched away from her as quickly as it was handed to her...
It had panicked her to the point of saying a month ago: "You could train me to take other roles in the dreamscape, couldn't you, Cobb?"
Cobb had this contemplative look, and said something about maybe taking some architecture jobs for himself now Mal wasn't going to be roaming the halls of their nightmares so often, and even though nothing's really happened-Ariadne hasn't been given much training in anything new-the idea was still out there. Prevalent. Gnawing under the surface. More firmly lodged than an incepted idea ever could be.
Until now. Because of - in a little while - the cup of coffee, which no one yet knows will be the impending incitement of such a terrible, horrible argument.
Cobb brings in a bunch of poster tubes from the trunk of his car. Ariadne's quietly amused at his confidence that Amelia's parents would let a bunch of law-breakers into their only child's head, but then she remembers how frail Amelia looks, and the amusement fizzles away into a pleasure that Cobb's confidence the job would go ahead was well placed.
Ariadne's excited despite the odd tension, and helps Cobb roll them out. As soon as the plans are all on the table Arthur comes over and looks at them, and his face goes ice cold.
"This isn't what you said," Arthur says, and his words are composed but his tone isn't; there's a strong tremble in his voice. Arthur's hands clench at the edges of the nearest table, like he's struggling to stay upright; Ariadne feels almost dizzy just looking at him, because Arthur's predictable and regimented and unchanging.
It's everyone else that changes-not Arthur.
Ariadne's moods are all over the place, especially with her unsettled periods (it's no small wonder Cobb never mentioned somnacin sometimes knocking her menstrual cycle aside-she supposes begrudgingly it's not something a man would even think to mention.)
Yusuf keeps jetting back to Mombasa for months at a time; when he comes back he's morose, the more he stays in California the happier he gets, but off he flies again, random and unpredictable.
Eames flits around from one job to the next. He doesn't change per se-although he shows up with a random assortment of injuries and on one occasion a slightly gappier smile-but Ariadne never knows now if they'll be working with or without him. When he's gone they get on with it, hire someone to be a thief; forging's not always necessary. When he's there, it's like he never left in the first place; he just slots in like a chameleon, riling up Arthur and flirting with everyone like it's his last day on Earth.
Cobb's confidence grows daily. Whereas once it was heartening, now Ariadne thinks his ego might one day explode.
No, Arthur's the one who stays rigid and strong throughout it all, and out of them all, he's the one Ariadne wishes to be like when she grows up. Eames still says Arthur doesn't have any imagination, like it's a bad thing, but Ariadne sometimes feels like she has too much. Like she's wasting her life by not using it in a way society would prefer. Ariadne doesn't know. She just knows she likes being with these people, and she likes dreaming, and it's going to take a lot to make her walk away now.
Because she can't help thinking something this amazing can't last forever.
Ariadne's fingers trace over the thick papers spread out before her. The plans have to be at least ten years old, and she can see coffee stains, and smudges of pink which she thinks might be sherbet, which is a little odd. There's also definitely areas where blood or ketchup were spilled on the plans, and she resists the urge to dip and sniff the paper, see if she can tell if it smells like tomato. There's place names scrawled on the map with incredibly neat, precise handwriting. The writing looks familiar. The name she can see nearest her, The Ivory Tower, sounds awfully familiar. But she's more interested in what's actually going on around her than some old plans.
Especially when Arthur's looking like he's possibly about to murder Cobb.
"I know this isn't quite what I said when I broke the mission," Cobb says, and his shoulders sag, but he looks at Arthur with a patient, level expression. "But the girl's lost, Arthur. I don't have a choice."
"You do. You do," Arthur says, incomprehensibly, but with such a note of actual panic in his voice that Eames shuts his mouth where he's lounging by a defunct water dispenser, obviously swallowing back a snarky comment or two. "I can't-" Arthur adds, like it's a big effort to do so.
"I know," Cobb says, again, and Ariadne feels awkward, like she's wandered into the room and her parents are already two-thirds of the way through a fight she doesn't understand. "It's why I took Ariadne to the meeting today and not you. I'm thinking of taking Ariadne on point."
"Woah, there." Eames pushes himself forward, eyes fixed on Cobb's face. "I'm not Arthur's biggest fan in the world, but there's a reason I keep working with you, Cobb. And it's not you. It's the fact that for some reason you have the best point man dog tailing you around the world like a kicked puppy looking for scraps of compliments from its deranged master, and-"
"I can fight my own battles, Eames. I'm not a child." Arthur snaps the words out with his usual brisk, emotionless efficiency. He doesn't even turn to look at Eames' face, and he misses the wash of emotions that tighten on Eames' face in a brutal rainbow-hostility, ambivalence, concern, regret, acceptance. Ariadne doesn't miss them. She notices more than anyone thinks. It's why she's a good architect, and why she's secretly been thinking she would make a good point man- er, point woman.
It's never crossed her mind that Cobb might think so too, though, because Arthur's their point man. Eames has admitted it gruffly more than enough that Arthur's the best point man in the business, even despite his prevalent lack of imagination. Eames has told her a lot over the last few months, of the teams he's worked, the jobs he's been on, and while a lot of it has to be bullshit, enough of it must be true. Eames has worked with every point man in the business, even Yusuf has confirmed that, and if he says Arthur is the best-without a hint of condescension-then it's plain fact.
So why the hell is Cobb saying Ariadne should take point?
She's missing something. Huge. It's a sad fact that she contemplates how to extract the reason from Cobb before she considers just plain asking him when she gets a quiet moment, or maybe it's just sad that an extraction would hold a greater chance of succeeding than outright asking for the truth.
"I'm fine-" Ariadne says. "I can just sit this one out. Or, y'know. Tourist. Amelia's family trusts me. We don't know why she's not waking up. She's physically healthy. Anything could be causing her to mentally withdrawal. A female presence in the dream could be key."
"You're point on this mission, Ariadne." Cobb says, hard. "Don't make me say it again." He doesn't look at anyone in particular when he says, "If anyone has trouble with that, I've got time to replace you all. Arthur, start running Ariadne through her paces. You of all people know how much a task it is to hold something like this in one head."
It turns out to be a complete understatement.
The maps are insane. Ariadne thinks after ten minutes of Arthur explaining the system to her that her head is going to explode, because what kind of physical place shifts its locations around? The main piece of the dreamscape stays in the centre, like a hub, and depending on which direction the dreamers go, Ariadne has to compensate with the landscape. Arthur seems quite happy explaining it to her, and confident she'll be able to manage it. She tries not to be sour that he doesn't feel worried about his job; Arthur and Cobb have been working together forever. It's Ariadne that's the newbie.
She wishes she had Arthur's faith in her that it will fit in her head.
"This is ridiculously difficult," Ariadne grumbles, realising why Cobb had muttered an excuse that necessitated him not being in the warehouse. Even Yusuf looks dazed, and he's not the subject of the discussion.
And then this is where the cup of coffee comes in. Later, Ariadne will regret saying it, but when she thinks back, it was such an innocuous statement that no one would have known it would start such a storm of a squabble.
"I need caffeine," Ariadne says.
"Caffeine won't help," Arthur says, grimly. "It's a transient environment and you need to be naturally alert to keep up with the progression of the landscape, depending on where the Mark wants to go."
"Her name's Amelia," Ariadne says, because she can't think of any other English words that would make sense next to Arthur's technobabble. "She's not a Mark. She's a sick child in a coma that we're helping. We're not extracting confidential information."
"You're just outlining the procedure, Arthur, not embedding the landscape in her head yet," Yusuf kindly interjects, as he often does when coffee is mentioned; his chemistry genius extends to beverages, too. "A cup of coffee at this stage isn't out of the question."
"Fine," Arthur says. "We'll break for a damn coffee. And while your synapses are weakening, and the world falls apart because you can't hold it long enough, I hope Amelia is very happy."
His tone is exactly the same as if he was discussing something technical about the PASIV, or dreamscape engineering, but that's how Arthur snarks; quiet and patronising and so you walk away scratching your head and only realize an hour later that he'd insulted you.
"Now, pet, Ari's new at this. You might not want to give her such a hard time," Eames says, moving closer to the maps.
"You're a fountain of knowledge, Mr. Eames. Why don't you walk Ariadne through a shifting, quad-axial dreamscape with fluctuating regions?"
The thing is, Arthur's still talking as if it's a normal, actionable, perfectly reasonable suggestion. It's only Eames' reaction that clues Ariadne in to the fact that Arthur's not being perfectly civil. One day, Ariadne thinks, she'll be able to tell the difference between Arthur being a bitch and Arthur being Arthur. She doesn't know whether to rue that day or welcome it.
"I would. But I'm not insecure about my job being made redundant." Eames leans over the table, his fingers tapping over the edges of the paper like it's a piano.
"I'm not- That's not-" Arthur takes a breath to compose himself, and now Ariadne's worried, because this is twice in a day that Arthur's apparently been lost for words, and she feels uneasy again. Arthur's never lost for words, or at least a concrete reaction. "God, who even does that, extrapolates some weird subtext from a conversation without the proper weight of context-"
"English sometime this century would be a courtesy," Eames interrupts, the biggest shit-eating grin on his face.
"I'm not going to grunt in monosyllables when a few polysyllabic words say what I mean more succinctly-"
"The day you say what you really mean, pet, there'll be a bloody parade in the streets," Eames says.
"I'll skip the coffee," Ariadne interjects, actually stepping between them and smiling at Arthur with a wide, fixed, terrified smile. Arthur moves his glare from Eames' face to hers. His expression softens immediately, but Ariadne feels the heat of his antagonism with Eames like a physical blow. "I'll apologise in advance for the caffeine withdrawal over the next couple of days, too."
So there's the usual bickering, and then the really heavy silence settles around them all like a heavy, suffocating blanket. Ariadne opens her mouth to ask a question about the layout, and then-as usual-Eames can't leave things alone.
"Best to wait to apologise until after the job is done, love. Unless you enjoy your coffee with a side of sarcasm."
"That's a mature response," Arthur automatically snaps.
"What are these maps, anyway?" Eames doesn't rise to the argument, which is practically an apology from him, even though there's nothing that Ariadne can see to say sorry for. Arthur's just tetchy and on edge for some reason that Ariadne can't see. Eames pushes at one of the maps, and Arthur leans over to stop him pushing, and as a result one of the paper's rips.
Arthur's eyes narrow - and that's when Ariadne thinks maybe Arthur's got his stubborn blinders up again. It happens sometimes with Eames. The whole world and its dog could see the different between Eames pranking around and Eames being earnest, but sometimes Arthur takes Eames so seriously that Ariadne almost forgets Arthur's capable of levity (the "paradox in my pants" incident over Christmas will forever convince Ariadne of the existence of Arthur's sense of humor) and Ariadne wants the ground to swallow her up because this is going to be a shitstorm of an argument.
"Christ, Eames-did the age of these papers spark off just a little bit of realisation in your head that these might be irreplaceable? Or are you this cavalier with everything?"
The problem when Arthur takes Eames' jokes seriously is that Eames instantly reacts with the same intensity. Eames mirrors people automatically and sometimes that's gestures and sometimes that's moods. "And by cavalier I suppose you mean careless-" Eames starts, stepping in closer.
"Careless is one word for it," Arthur starts. "I could add to it. Idiotic. Moronic. Unthinking-"
Eames loses any attempt at composure, even though Arthur looks as though they could be discussing the weather. "Right, I'll-"
No one finds out what Eames is about to say, or, more likely, do. Ariadne hadn't noticed Cobb's return, but she should have expected it; he usually turned up to intervene at about this point in one of Arthur and Eames' arguments. It's like he has a sixth sense for it. Perhaps he's just training for James and Phillipa's inevitable, inescapable puberty.
"Are they bickering again?" Cobb says. Arthur looks at Cobb with a patient 'he started it' expression which is blatantly untrue in this case (as Arthur's the one who did the majority of her substantial induction into dreamsharing-and in the time she spent with him training there were no murderous projections or possibly lethal secrets like with Cobb's portion of the training-she tends to be loyal to him over any of the others, to a point. Arthur passed that point more than a good minute ago.)
"It's just a matter of personal dream approach," Yusuf says, helpfully. "A clash of preferred technique. I would lend to Arthur's expertise in this area as he's dreamed the world before."
Ariadne opens her mouth automatically, only for Cobb to actually clamp his hand around her mouth. She's so shocked she goes slack, and then shoots him the worst death glare she can muster, and he lets her go. "You'd only say something you'd regret," Cobb tells her, and Ariadne bristles, but he's right so she mimes zipping her mouth shut. "Kids, grab your coats. We're going out."
"Cobb," Arthur protests, "this is a huge task-"
"Which needs time and the appropriate attention. No one's in the right headspace. We need to de-stress."
"Cobb," Arthur says, and his voice sounds a lot more strained now.
Cobb sighs, and gives Arthur a mostly unreadable expression. Ariadne can see a little bit of sadness, and a little bit of self-loathing, and a jumble of something else which passes between them like a secret handshake that makes Arthur's expression tighter than normal. If Ariadne didn't know Arthur, she wouldn't have noticed he's more stressed, but she recognises now that despite his mouth being almost permanently pressed into a thin line, there's a downturn to the right side that betrays how tense he's feeling.
"Amelia's been in a vegetative state for two years now. An extra week or two won't hurt her," Cobb says eventually. "Us being tense and unhappy might."
Arthur sags minutely, until Eames grins speculatively at him and Arthur makes this huff under his breath which is pretty terrifying. Ariadne tries not to hurry for her coat.
#
Cobb's idea of team bonding and relaxing is to go to the beach. It's one of the reasons why Ariadne doesn't mind being out in San Jose and not in a quaint Paris apartment which had been her plan for life for as long as she can remember.
Dreaming with the PASIV, doing a job with her team, and easy access to the sea, it's more than worth the sacrifice.
There's some sort of carnival-stroke-market thing going on today, which Cobb navigates successfully to a ratty looking food vendor which produces some surprisingly excellent stuff. Ariadne goes for it and comes out with a hamburger which she thinks she would possibly kill for and a corn dog. Eames has one too and immediately makes a lewd penis reference which Ariadne thinks is directly responsible for Arthur coming away with nothing but a bottle of water.
As they wander over the beach itself, Ariadne slipping off her shoes and socks long before they get to the sand and stashing them in her shoulder bag because she likes the feel of granite beneath her toes as much as she likes sand and the sea, Yusuf buys cotton candy for everyone.
Arthur's the only one to keep his in its plastic bag, and she watches it swing in his hand as they walk, distracted by the way the light glances from it. When she looks up, Eames is twisting his candy floss into ever-increasingly rude shapes, apparently for Arthur's benefit. Arthur only manages a fleeting smile when Eames shapes his candy into a cock and balls, unfortunately right in front of an appalled mother and her two seven-year old twin girls.
From Eames' example, and with her hamburger and corn dog settling into an uncomfortable rolling dog fight in the pit of her stomach, she leans against the metal railings separating the sand from the promenade, and starts creating a mini city with her candy floss. She sits cross legged on the sand, keeping her back to the railing, waiting for the queasiness to calm before she goes in the sea. She frowns as she pushes at her candy floss with her finger. Eames made it look so easy.
"Ever the architect," Cobb says, sitting down next to her. Yusuf is off paddling in the water already, but he has an iron constitution. Arthur, as ever, is hovering close to Cobb, and Eames casually joins in next to her, smiling in that knowing way he has that makes her feel like she's one of the crew, a sharp counterpoint to the way she's been feeling since Cobb announced the job.
That panic is still there, bubbling under the surface despite her new job role. Maybe especially with her job role, and the sinking feeling she's not going to manage the job anywhere near Arthur's standards.
She needs to change the direction of her thoughts before she ends up losing any more of her self esteem. The conversation reorients her and she shapes one of the candy towers into a pointed spire. "Not so much on this job, apparently."
"You'll get the hang of it," Cobb says comfortingly, rubbing his stomach absent-mindedly. The food had been too much for him too. Ariadne can't remember when she last ate before the hot vendor food, and maybe that's the problem they're all having, except for Arthur, who was smart enough to stick to water, who still has his candy floss bagged up at his side.
"Why did you pick me? In Paris," Ariadne says, out of nowhere. She didn't even realize the question had been bugging her until it's out of her mouth.
"Miles said you were his best student," Cobb says amicably with a shrug. He's squinting away from her, at the relatively busy beach for a Thursday afternoon, but maybe that's due to the market carnival thing. "I used to be his student, a long time ago. It's why I know he can pick out the best students, the ones with the aptitude for dreamsharing."
"Because he picked you," Ariadne says, and doesn't let his smugness go without an eye roll. "I meant... Why did he, why do you pick architect students for creating dream worlds?" Ariadne leans backwards, shading her eyes but glancing up at the sun regardless, squinting furiously. "Why not artists?" She glances to Eames to punctuate the thought, but Cobb responds.
"Artists do tend to have more imagination," Cobb allows, "but the few I've taken in... the world looks amazing, but the feel of it isn't there. The structure. Architects tend to dream up the same kind of beauty, but they remember to lay foundations in first. They put the basics in and build on them; they're not tempted to go backwards. It's a specialised kind of art that lends itself to dreamshare."
"Not that I'm trying to talk myself out of work-I'm just curious-but why not a writer, then? Some writers I've met are more visual than the artists I know. And they have to have structure in their work to fit plots in, beginnings, middles, ends..." Ariadne looks down from the sun, smiling oddly at the afterburn of flickering lights in her vision, thinking about trying to catch one but reigning the impulse in.
"Took one in once," Cobb says, with a shrug. "The world was delightful, dizzying, the most beautiful place I've ever been. Rich, full of life, full of imagination. We took the Mark down a level more and the second dream was as close to reality as you can get without using memories, and the Mark didn't believe it. Didn't really believe real life after that for a long time."
"More than that," Eames breaks in. Ariadne startles and then is embarrassed-she had almost forgotten he was there. That was one of his key talents. Chameleon. Slide into the background or into a key role, as much as required. Ariadne's glad Cobb doesn't want her to train as a forger, because it seems like it might be even harder work than training to be on point. "Too much imagination is a bad thing in our business."
"Too much?" Ariadne blinks, and it's not to dispel the after image of the sun dotting around the sky. "But you rib Arthur every day for not having any-"
Arthur bristles at the second-hand insult; Ariadne shoots him a look of apology. Eames grins, and obviously starts to think about how he can use other people to deliver his barbs and snide comments to Arthur. He looks delighted, and Arthur looks decidedly unimpressed.
On to part 2
Masterpost
mizzy2k
#
Bastian made many other wishes, and had many other amazing adventures - before he finally returned to the ordinary world. But that's... another story.
#
Apparently secrets aren't the only thing Dominic Cobb will attempt to extract.
#
Ariadne still considers herself a rookie to the whole dreamsharing business.
Everything is strange to her. Militarizing someone's subconscious. Setting up a heist in someone's brain to steal their deepest secrets. Recreating people's fantasies. Inception. It's all really bizarre.
So when Cobb comes up with something even a consummate extractor might think odd, Ariadne doesn't notice at first.
"There's a girl. Amelia. Nine years old," Cobb starts. "A few years she was diagnosed with NICCD - neonatal intrahepatic cholestasis caused by citrin deficiency-"
"Liver disease," Yusuf interrupts, before Eames' confused face settles into the more hostile expression he wears when Cobb gets polysyllabic on them.
"Yes. That." Cobb scratches his nose, like he always does when someone derails him. "It happens sometimes in adults that symptoms of citrullinemia... Yusuf?"
"A genetic disease that causes ammonia and toxins to build up in the blood," Yusuf says.
Ariadne smiles at him to let him know she's impressed. The smile he sends back is a little strained. Ariadne's smile softens, and she looks back at Cobb. One day she'll understand why Yusuf prefers making chemicals in the back of dirty warehouses and running a highly illegal dreamden, when he could so very easily be a high-paid doctor.
She files the mystery in the back of her head, and tries to think about what this mission could be about. Cobb's never started a briefing with a medical report before, but that doesn't mean it's anything weird in the dreamsharing world.
"It's so rare for NICCD sufferers to get the citrullinemia symptoms so quickly that... the parents missed it. Amelia fell into a coma two months ago." Cobb temples his fingers, leans back against the nearest table, and looks at them seriously. "The doctors realized immediately what was wrong with her and treated her."
"So what's the problem?" Arthur asks. Ariadne looks in his direction. He's frowning slightly, his pen and moleskin in his lap. She can see his neat handwriting, citrullinemia (sp?) and medical extraction? and coma heavily underlined.
That's Ariadne's first clue that there's something different about this job. She doesn't think she's ever seen Arthur underline things in his moleskin.
She settles in to listen to Cobb's answer, hyper alert now that there might be something strange going on.
"She didn't wake up," Cobb says.
"So... the doctors cocked something up?" Eames asks. He's leaning back in his lawn chair, looking for all the world like he might be on some sunny veranda in an exotic European location, not on a second-hand lawnchair in a grimy Californian warehouse. "Medical extraction. I'll be a nurse." He leers a little at Arthur. "You'd be my patient. Pain in the ass, right?"
"Don't be gauche," Arthur mutters.
"Would I?" Eames asks in an injured tone, throwing his best angelic look Arthur's way.
"Yes," Ariadne says, at the same time as Arthur does. Arthur's mouth twitches. It's the closest he comes during briefings to a grin, so Ariadne takes it as one and grins back.
"And the pain in the ass would be you, I'd imagine," Yusuf tells Eames. Arthur makes a choking sound and Eames looks delighted for a second.
"Mr. Cobb, the children are ganging up on me," Eames sing-songs.
Cobb sighs and shakes his head and ignores them. "I've checked and double checked the medical reports. Sent it to the usual sources. Nada. Amelia's clinically healthy. She should be waking up."
All levity in the room drops. Eames' face is a question mark. Ariadne's stomach flutters. There's the second sign this is not a regular dreamsharing job. Ariadne has to take her cues from the professionals. She folds her arms and waits to see what Cobb's about to say.
"So we're..." Eames sounds out his thoughts. "Extracting Amelia from herself?"
He sounds unsure of himself. Clue three: this is really not regular extractor stuff at all. It's one of Ariadne's best cues to deciphering the dreamsharing world: If Eames hasn't done something with a PASIV, it's either boring, so beyond ridiculously dangerous that even a gambler wouldn't touch it, or strangely out of the norm.
"We've done it before," Arthur says gently, into the silence. Eames looks at him, surprised. Arthur throws him a smug look for a moment. "We shouldn't need anything more than a dream-within-a-dream."
"Damn," Yusuf says, "I was looking forward to trying out a new compound."
"We may need one anyway," Cobb says. "Amelia's on a certain amount of medication. We need a compound that won't interfere with the medication she's on. I've got a meeting set up with the parents in an hour. I'll text you the list when I get it."
"I should still be able to start work, I know some of the major therapies, and what will be contraindicated," Yusuf says. "Arthur, there'll be some equipment I need, will you be able to work your magic?"
"It's called the Internet, Yusuf," Arthur says, getting to his feet and reaching over for the laptop, "and one day you will know its many mysteries for yourself."
"And when Arthur's installed you a robust antivirus on that decrepit machine you call a desktop, Yusuf," Eames says, "then I will link you to all the free porn."
Arthur stills and glances sideways at Eames. "Violence is wasted on you," Arthur informs him, after a pause, before continuing over to the set of tables Yusuf had already claimed as his own.
"Love," Eames says, sarcasm lacing the epithet, "it's always so charming to work alongside you."
"Your condescension, as always, is much appreciated, Eames, thank you," Arthur calls back, winking at Ariadne. Ariadne smothers her grin and edges a look at Eames, who looks torn between pitching a fit and laughing.
Cobb's pinning up some information on their board, some research about the illness along with a picture of Amelia. Ariadne moves over to look at it, feeling a little bit unsure. It's mostly because the architecture hasn't been discussed yet. Ariadne likes to be prepared on their jobs, usually because Cobb never estimates the time they'll have properly. Or he just enjoys putting them all under pressure because he's sadistic... or that's his management style.
If the latter, his management style is rubbish.
Ariadne hopes he's just trying to make her be a bit more forward, so tries the proactive approach. "So... do you have any ideas about the architecture or are you waiting to see Amelia in person?" she asks.
"I've already got the plans for this one," Cobb tells her. Ariadne freezes for a moment, feeling suddenly and terribly insecure. She swallows it back down. She really doesn't want to remind Cobb how young and inexperienced she is. She's replaceable, after all. Cobb doesn't seem to notice her moment of crestfallen angst, because he continues, "I thought you might like to come to the meeting with me."
"Seriously?"
Cobb looks pleased at her burst of disbelief. "A female voice might be a better approach."
"So you only want me for my voice," Ariadne says, mock-dolefully, "well, I've had worse pick-up lines."
Cobb, predictably, flusters at that. "I- we- you-"
"Relax, she's messing with you." They both look to see Arthur looking at them both, the internet dongle in his hand. Ariadne shoots him an apologetic look - it's her fault for leaving it in the laptop bag, not attached to the laptop. "He's right about the female interaction. Considering the sensitivity and type of the extraction, it needs an empathetic pitch. Two men might be too hostile."
Ariadne nods.
"Although," Arthur adds, leaning in, his hands behind his back, twining the cable of the dongle between his fingers, "I'd be a little paranoid that Cobb just wants someone who won't interrupt him when he's trying to be melodramatic."
"Hey," Cobb says.
"He does like to be melodramatic," Ariadne intones.
"I'm standing right here," Cobb mutters.
"He's adorable when he's being micromanaged," Ariadne muses to Arthur, like Cobb isn't actually there. Although it would be wasted if he wasn't.
"I don't micromanage," Arthur says, "I backseat extract."
Ariadne rolls her eyes. "Specificity, shmecificity."
Arthur gifts her one of his rare, small smiles, and then looks at Cobb, seriously. "Be empathetic," he says, "and stick to the point. Don't be too dramatic. This is a child, not a billion dollar secret."
"Yes, mother," Cobb says.
"Melodramatic," Arthur says to Ariadne in a fake conspiratorial tone before waving the dongle at them in a 'this is why I'm moving away now' gesture.
"I've never met with a client before," Ariadne says. A terrible thought strikes her. "Do I have to wear a suit? I don't own a suit. Well, I did own a suit once for my college interviews, but even then it wasn't exactly business friendly attire, I wore it down into the hotel level in the Fischer job but dreamed it as a skirt when it was really a skort, I-"
"Arthur babbled before his first client meeting too," Cobb says, looking down at her. "You'll be fine."
"Arthur babbled?" Ariadne says, because she can't help herself. "Wow. I guess you can't always know everything about everyone you work with."
It's a light-hearted observation. It doesn't explain why Cobb suddenly goes cold and withdrawn for a moment. Ariadne follows his gaze over to where Arthur's pushing in the dongle and connecting to the variable signal that plagues their warehouse.
"We'd best get a move on," Cobb says. He sounds a little distant, but he moves for the door before Ariadne can mention it. She takes another look over at Arthur, tapping away efficiently as Yusuf looks on in wonder, like what Arthur does is actually magic.
Then again, they walk around in people's dreams. Anything's possible.
Ariadne smiles to herself and follows Cobb out of the warehouse to the car.
#
Their client's sitting room is clean, if a little sparse. There's little hint of personality, and the walls and the furnishings are all magnolia. Even the light fitting is magnolia.
It's just too much bland for Ariadne.
Cobb's still explaining the procedure to Amelia's parents, but Ariadne's overwhelmed by the whole concept. She excuses herself and waits in the hallway, listening to Cobb's muffled voice, reassuring and charming as he explains the process to them.
Ariadne keeps her head down, and considers looking at the past half an hour again in the PASIV later, to see if she's as much a coward as she thinks she is for wandering out. Memories aren't as terrible for solo dreams as for shared ones, and Ariadne loves to be able to walk amongst them, relive the better ones, and expunge the negatives ones in belated catharsis. It's better than therapy.
Suddenly Ariadne realizes why they're even doing this job. It's something even a therapist can't do. The implications of dreamshare are staggering, which is probably why it's all so very illegal.
Cobb's persuasive voice is a low soundtrack in the background. It's nothing but guilt that leaves Ariadne stranded out here in the narrow hallway, twisting her hair around one finger, casting uneasy glances down the corridor to where Amelia lies in her coma.
Lost, the doctors have been saying, inside her own head.
Amelia's parents are old college friends of Mal's, and it wasn't as if the job was an impossible one - Arthur said they'd done this before. Ariadne's slightly appalled at herself for going along with Cobb for that reason alone. Last time he said that, they nearly all ended up as vegetables, lost in limbo.
Of course, that's the thought that brings it all home for Ariadne. She was a single bad decision away from ending up like Amelia.
It's morbid curiosity that leads Ariadne up the small hallway and away from Cobb's low, entreating tones. Their house is much like the one Ariadne grew up in; three bedrooms, magnolia paint on the walls, the whole place a blank canvas for imagination to take flight.
Ariadne trails her fingers lightly against the wall as she casually explores. She knows which room Amelia is in. Amelia. Even the name is ringing against the inside of her skull, a skip and a step away from her own name. Ariadne's always had a fanciful imagination. Her childhood home was as bland as this house, and Ariadne's mother let Ariadne choose the decorations for her own room, provided she did the decorating herself. So Ariadne did. She made over her room once a month, spending her allowance on paint and pens, imagining and re-imagining cities and dreamscapes, never realising that form of creation was nowhere near as pure as the PASIV would allow her in the not-so-distant future.
Amelia's just a girl, in a house like Ariadne grew up in, stuck in her own brain without even the experience of limbo beforehand to temper the terror of it. Ariadne sometimes has the plummeting feeling that experiencing limbo might be worth it. It only takes remembering the sunken, horrified expression Cobb gets when something reminds him of Mal to wipe that fancy away.
She's so focussed on the parallels of her life and Amelia's that by the time Ariadne gets to the doorway she and Cobb passed earlier, Ariadne is actually startled to see the young Amelia in bed. Amelia looks younger than nine years old, but her parents have no reason to lie; she has a fuzzy halo of blonde hair and a peaceful expression on her blank, pale face.
Ariadne's heart contracts at the sight of her, arranged like she might be in a coffin, with tubes forcing breath into her and machines counting her heartbeats, and immediately Ariadne just feels ashamed at thinking of her own relief at surviving in face of Amelia's suffering.
Ariadne has always hated being scared of anything, so she doesn't fall back; she goes into Amelia's room and sits down in one of the armchairs by Amelia's bed, and watches her breathe for a while with the aid of the machinery.
She wants to say something, because everyone knows comatose people should be talked to, just in case, but Ariadne has no idea what to say.
"Hi," she tries, "I'm Ariadne," but it doesn't feel like anywhere near enough. She casts around to see if Amelia has any interests. There are a lot of books, and one large hardcover is on the floor next to the bed. Ariadne bends and picks it up, smoothing her finger over the cover.
It's a first edition of The Neverending Story by Bastian Balthazar Bux. Ariadne can't help the smile that tugs her face. It was a huge hit when it came out, when Ariadne was small; a movie adaptation followed and Ariadne and all her friends went to see it ten times over. Most of her friends had a crush on Atreyu, but Ariadne liked small, brave Bastian the best. She empathised with him, wanting to escape into this fantasy tale rather than live real life.
"She loves that book."
Ariadne starts, and turns guiltily, her fingers clinging onto the edge of the book, not wanting to drop the treasured volume on top of being nosy and invasive. "I used to love it too," Ariadne says, smiling tentatively up at Amelia's mother, who's stood in the doorway, looking small and frail and so very sad. "I guess I was maybe more of a fan of the film, though."
"I'm glad you know of it."
Ariadne moves to get out of the chair.
"Oh, don't. Stay." Amelia's mother moves as if to put her hand on Ariadne's shoulder, but she pauses mid-way through the movement as if thinking better of it and looks at Ariadne awkwardly instead. "Read to her. She'd like that. I'm sure she gets tired of my silly old voice," Amelia's mother says, sinking onto the nearest stool to the door. She looks tired and her eyes stray over Amelia's body like it hurts to look at her. "Your boss says he's using the story as inspiration for Amelia's therapy. It sounds silly to someone like me."
"He didn't tell me that," Ariadne says, and flushes, because she shouldn't sound unprepared in front of a client. Amelia's mother smiles regardless. Maybe honesty is a comfort too. "Well, I can see how it would work. Turn Amelia's headspace into the fantasy world... and then open up a gate home. Get her to step through it."
It's clever. Ariadne looks at Amelia, and wonders how lost inside her head she actually is, and whether they'll be able to find her.
"You still sound doubtful."
Ariadne smiles, but it's tight and there's less comfort in it than she would like. "Well, it's not as easy as if Persephone was her favourite story. It would be easy to convince her that she's had her six months in Hades and it's time to come home for Spring."
"I don't particularly like the idea of Hades being anywhere in her head."
Ariadne falters. She was trying to be helpful. She'd always loved the story of Persephone; that love had overcome her reason. Cobb shouldn't have brought her. "If Cobb's finished, I should be going," Ariadne says.
"Your boss is passionate about his work."
"He is," Ariadne says, automatically, turning more fully in the chair to look at Amelia's mother, and if it keeps Amelia out of her line of vision, well, her mother doesn't have to know it's deliberate. "He's a father," she adds, not knowing what she's going to say but searching for the words regardless, "I think this type of work really strikes a chord. Like he's doing it in the hope that should he not be in this line of work, someone would do it for James or for Phillipa."
"And do you think you can do this for her?"
Ariadne looks back at Amelia, because looking at a torn and withered nine year old might make her sad, but it's suddenly better than looking at her mother, old before her time, worry scarring lines onto her face and tightening her jaw. "We're going to try our best."
There's a hesitant pat on her shoulder, and Ariadne looks up into the smiling face of Amelia's mother, and Ariadne smiles back, ignoring the moisture in her eyes, and then Cobb appears in the doorway and tells her it's time to go.
On the way to the car, he confirms they've been given the job. Ariadne's feeling a mixture of odd happiness and sadness. More relief than anything else. She rides that feeling. What they do is illegal, but if they can do good things like this, the definitely moral alongside the dubiously moral jobs, then maybe Ariadne will continue to be able to sleep at night.
She's feeling better about herself and the world than she has for a long time.
...and then she goes back to the warehouse and accidentally starts a fight.
#
The fight starts over a small thing-a cup of coffee.
Really it's about the lingering fear that Cobb's going to replace them all, or make one of them redundant, and Ariadne feels dreadful for starting it. And it's not a full-on fight-those, with their combined histories, involve at least one gun, and someone inevitably walks away with a black eye, and once it was Ariadne an hour before a huge exam and Miles was furious.
It's just one of their odd fights. There's been plenty of them over the year Ariadne's been working with this team of unique individuals. It normally starts with bickering and then really heavy silence until Eames makes an inappropriate and lewd joke, and then Arthur looks enraged and calls Eames terrible and makes a snit about civilised society, and Eames mutters about not even knowing what that is, present company included, and then Arthur breaks something and blames it on something else that isn't him and his inability to deal with emotions because they're something he can't control.
Cobb inevitably descends with his ever-increasing God complex (regaining his kids and performing inception to a positive end has been like a drug to Dominic Cobb) and Yusuf points out something perfectly reasonable which Ariadne shoots down because of how guilty she feels, and then everyone wanders around, sulking and feeling hurt, for hours, and the practice sessions don't go right at all.
And Ariadne hadn't meant to bring up the trigger point for most of their recent fights, except this job apparently doesn't need an architect-not if Cobb already has the plans-and she's addicted to the dreaming now. She can dream without the somnacin and the PASIV, but... her own dreams always seem a lot smaller now, and weirder. The idea of it all being snatched away from her as quickly as it was handed to her...
It had panicked her to the point of saying a month ago: "You could train me to take other roles in the dreamscape, couldn't you, Cobb?"
Cobb had this contemplative look, and said something about maybe taking some architecture jobs for himself now Mal wasn't going to be roaming the halls of their nightmares so often, and even though nothing's really happened-Ariadne hasn't been given much training in anything new-the idea was still out there. Prevalent. Gnawing under the surface. More firmly lodged than an incepted idea ever could be.
Until now. Because of - in a little while - the cup of coffee, which no one yet knows will be the impending incitement of such a terrible, horrible argument.
Cobb brings in a bunch of poster tubes from the trunk of his car. Ariadne's quietly amused at his confidence that Amelia's parents would let a bunch of law-breakers into their only child's head, but then she remembers how frail Amelia looks, and the amusement fizzles away into a pleasure that Cobb's confidence the job would go ahead was well placed.
Ariadne's excited despite the odd tension, and helps Cobb roll them out. As soon as the plans are all on the table Arthur comes over and looks at them, and his face goes ice cold.
"This isn't what you said," Arthur says, and his words are composed but his tone isn't; there's a strong tremble in his voice. Arthur's hands clench at the edges of the nearest table, like he's struggling to stay upright; Ariadne feels almost dizzy just looking at him, because Arthur's predictable and regimented and unchanging.
It's everyone else that changes-not Arthur.
Ariadne's moods are all over the place, especially with her unsettled periods (it's no small wonder Cobb never mentioned somnacin sometimes knocking her menstrual cycle aside-she supposes begrudgingly it's not something a man would even think to mention.)
Yusuf keeps jetting back to Mombasa for months at a time; when he comes back he's morose, the more he stays in California the happier he gets, but off he flies again, random and unpredictable.
Eames flits around from one job to the next. He doesn't change per se-although he shows up with a random assortment of injuries and on one occasion a slightly gappier smile-but Ariadne never knows now if they'll be working with or without him. When he's gone they get on with it, hire someone to be a thief; forging's not always necessary. When he's there, it's like he never left in the first place; he just slots in like a chameleon, riling up Arthur and flirting with everyone like it's his last day on Earth.
Cobb's confidence grows daily. Whereas once it was heartening, now Ariadne thinks his ego might one day explode.
No, Arthur's the one who stays rigid and strong throughout it all, and out of them all, he's the one Ariadne wishes to be like when she grows up. Eames still says Arthur doesn't have any imagination, like it's a bad thing, but Ariadne sometimes feels like she has too much. Like she's wasting her life by not using it in a way society would prefer. Ariadne doesn't know. She just knows she likes being with these people, and she likes dreaming, and it's going to take a lot to make her walk away now.
Because she can't help thinking something this amazing can't last forever.
Ariadne's fingers trace over the thick papers spread out before her. The plans have to be at least ten years old, and she can see coffee stains, and smudges of pink which she thinks might be sherbet, which is a little odd. There's also definitely areas where blood or ketchup were spilled on the plans, and she resists the urge to dip and sniff the paper, see if she can tell if it smells like tomato. There's place names scrawled on the map with incredibly neat, precise handwriting. The writing looks familiar. The name she can see nearest her, The Ivory Tower, sounds awfully familiar. But she's more interested in what's actually going on around her than some old plans.
Especially when Arthur's looking like he's possibly about to murder Cobb.
"I know this isn't quite what I said when I broke the mission," Cobb says, and his shoulders sag, but he looks at Arthur with a patient, level expression. "But the girl's lost, Arthur. I don't have a choice."
"You do. You do," Arthur says, incomprehensibly, but with such a note of actual panic in his voice that Eames shuts his mouth where he's lounging by a defunct water dispenser, obviously swallowing back a snarky comment or two. "I can't-" Arthur adds, like it's a big effort to do so.
"I know," Cobb says, again, and Ariadne feels awkward, like she's wandered into the room and her parents are already two-thirds of the way through a fight she doesn't understand. "It's why I took Ariadne to the meeting today and not you. I'm thinking of taking Ariadne on point."
"Woah, there." Eames pushes himself forward, eyes fixed on Cobb's face. "I'm not Arthur's biggest fan in the world, but there's a reason I keep working with you, Cobb. And it's not you. It's the fact that for some reason you have the best point man dog tailing you around the world like a kicked puppy looking for scraps of compliments from its deranged master, and-"
"I can fight my own battles, Eames. I'm not a child." Arthur snaps the words out with his usual brisk, emotionless efficiency. He doesn't even turn to look at Eames' face, and he misses the wash of emotions that tighten on Eames' face in a brutal rainbow-hostility, ambivalence, concern, regret, acceptance. Ariadne doesn't miss them. She notices more than anyone thinks. It's why she's a good architect, and why she's secretly been thinking she would make a good point man- er, point woman.
It's never crossed her mind that Cobb might think so too, though, because Arthur's their point man. Eames has admitted it gruffly more than enough that Arthur's the best point man in the business, even despite his prevalent lack of imagination. Eames has told her a lot over the last few months, of the teams he's worked, the jobs he's been on, and while a lot of it has to be bullshit, enough of it must be true. Eames has worked with every point man in the business, even Yusuf has confirmed that, and if he says Arthur is the best-without a hint of condescension-then it's plain fact.
So why the hell is Cobb saying Ariadne should take point?
She's missing something. Huge. It's a sad fact that she contemplates how to extract the reason from Cobb before she considers just plain asking him when she gets a quiet moment, or maybe it's just sad that an extraction would hold a greater chance of succeeding than outright asking for the truth.
"I'm fine-" Ariadne says. "I can just sit this one out. Or, y'know. Tourist. Amelia's family trusts me. We don't know why she's not waking up. She's physically healthy. Anything could be causing her to mentally withdrawal. A female presence in the dream could be key."
"You're point on this mission, Ariadne." Cobb says, hard. "Don't make me say it again." He doesn't look at anyone in particular when he says, "If anyone has trouble with that, I've got time to replace you all. Arthur, start running Ariadne through her paces. You of all people know how much a task it is to hold something like this in one head."
It turns out to be a complete understatement.
The maps are insane. Ariadne thinks after ten minutes of Arthur explaining the system to her that her head is going to explode, because what kind of physical place shifts its locations around? The main piece of the dreamscape stays in the centre, like a hub, and depending on which direction the dreamers go, Ariadne has to compensate with the landscape. Arthur seems quite happy explaining it to her, and confident she'll be able to manage it. She tries not to be sour that he doesn't feel worried about his job; Arthur and Cobb have been working together forever. It's Ariadne that's the newbie.
She wishes she had Arthur's faith in her that it will fit in her head.
"This is ridiculously difficult," Ariadne grumbles, realising why Cobb had muttered an excuse that necessitated him not being in the warehouse. Even Yusuf looks dazed, and he's not the subject of the discussion.
And then this is where the cup of coffee comes in. Later, Ariadne will regret saying it, but when she thinks back, it was such an innocuous statement that no one would have known it would start such a storm of a squabble.
"I need caffeine," Ariadne says.
"Caffeine won't help," Arthur says, grimly. "It's a transient environment and you need to be naturally alert to keep up with the progression of the landscape, depending on where the Mark wants to go."
"Her name's Amelia," Ariadne says, because she can't think of any other English words that would make sense next to Arthur's technobabble. "She's not a Mark. She's a sick child in a coma that we're helping. We're not extracting confidential information."
"You're just outlining the procedure, Arthur, not embedding the landscape in her head yet," Yusuf kindly interjects, as he often does when coffee is mentioned; his chemistry genius extends to beverages, too. "A cup of coffee at this stage isn't out of the question."
"Fine," Arthur says. "We'll break for a damn coffee. And while your synapses are weakening, and the world falls apart because you can't hold it long enough, I hope Amelia is very happy."
His tone is exactly the same as if he was discussing something technical about the PASIV, or dreamscape engineering, but that's how Arthur snarks; quiet and patronising and so you walk away scratching your head and only realize an hour later that he'd insulted you.
"Now, pet, Ari's new at this. You might not want to give her such a hard time," Eames says, moving closer to the maps.
"You're a fountain of knowledge, Mr. Eames. Why don't you walk Ariadne through a shifting, quad-axial dreamscape with fluctuating regions?"
The thing is, Arthur's still talking as if it's a normal, actionable, perfectly reasonable suggestion. It's only Eames' reaction that clues Ariadne in to the fact that Arthur's not being perfectly civil. One day, Ariadne thinks, she'll be able to tell the difference between Arthur being a bitch and Arthur being Arthur. She doesn't know whether to rue that day or welcome it.
"I would. But I'm not insecure about my job being made redundant." Eames leans over the table, his fingers tapping over the edges of the paper like it's a piano.
"I'm not- That's not-" Arthur takes a breath to compose himself, and now Ariadne's worried, because this is twice in a day that Arthur's apparently been lost for words, and she feels uneasy again. Arthur's never lost for words, or at least a concrete reaction. "God, who even does that, extrapolates some weird subtext from a conversation without the proper weight of context-"
"English sometime this century would be a courtesy," Eames interrupts, the biggest shit-eating grin on his face.
"I'm not going to grunt in monosyllables when a few polysyllabic words say what I mean more succinctly-"
"The day you say what you really mean, pet, there'll be a bloody parade in the streets," Eames says.
"I'll skip the coffee," Ariadne interjects, actually stepping between them and smiling at Arthur with a wide, fixed, terrified smile. Arthur moves his glare from Eames' face to hers. His expression softens immediately, but Ariadne feels the heat of his antagonism with Eames like a physical blow. "I'll apologise in advance for the caffeine withdrawal over the next couple of days, too."
So there's the usual bickering, and then the really heavy silence settles around them all like a heavy, suffocating blanket. Ariadne opens her mouth to ask a question about the layout, and then-as usual-Eames can't leave things alone.
"Best to wait to apologise until after the job is done, love. Unless you enjoy your coffee with a side of sarcasm."
"That's a mature response," Arthur automatically snaps.
"What are these maps, anyway?" Eames doesn't rise to the argument, which is practically an apology from him, even though there's nothing that Ariadne can see to say sorry for. Arthur's just tetchy and on edge for some reason that Ariadne can't see. Eames pushes at one of the maps, and Arthur leans over to stop him pushing, and as a result one of the paper's rips.
Arthur's eyes narrow - and that's when Ariadne thinks maybe Arthur's got his stubborn blinders up again. It happens sometimes with Eames. The whole world and its dog could see the different between Eames pranking around and Eames being earnest, but sometimes Arthur takes Eames so seriously that Ariadne almost forgets Arthur's capable of levity (the "paradox in my pants" incident over Christmas will forever convince Ariadne of the existence of Arthur's sense of humor) and Ariadne wants the ground to swallow her up because this is going to be a shitstorm of an argument.
"Christ, Eames-did the age of these papers spark off just a little bit of realisation in your head that these might be irreplaceable? Or are you this cavalier with everything?"
The problem when Arthur takes Eames' jokes seriously is that Eames instantly reacts with the same intensity. Eames mirrors people automatically and sometimes that's gestures and sometimes that's moods. "And by cavalier I suppose you mean careless-" Eames starts, stepping in closer.
"Careless is one word for it," Arthur starts. "I could add to it. Idiotic. Moronic. Unthinking-"
Eames loses any attempt at composure, even though Arthur looks as though they could be discussing the weather. "Right, I'll-"
No one finds out what Eames is about to say, or, more likely, do. Ariadne hadn't noticed Cobb's return, but she should have expected it; he usually turned up to intervene at about this point in one of Arthur and Eames' arguments. It's like he has a sixth sense for it. Perhaps he's just training for James and Phillipa's inevitable, inescapable puberty.
"Are they bickering again?" Cobb says. Arthur looks at Cobb with a patient 'he started it' expression which is blatantly untrue in this case (as Arthur's the one who did the majority of her substantial induction into dreamsharing-and in the time she spent with him training there were no murderous projections or possibly lethal secrets like with Cobb's portion of the training-she tends to be loyal to him over any of the others, to a point. Arthur passed that point more than a good minute ago.)
"It's just a matter of personal dream approach," Yusuf says, helpfully. "A clash of preferred technique. I would lend to Arthur's expertise in this area as he's dreamed the world before."
Ariadne opens her mouth automatically, only for Cobb to actually clamp his hand around her mouth. She's so shocked she goes slack, and then shoots him the worst death glare she can muster, and he lets her go. "You'd only say something you'd regret," Cobb tells her, and Ariadne bristles, but he's right so she mimes zipping her mouth shut. "Kids, grab your coats. We're going out."
"Cobb," Arthur protests, "this is a huge task-"
"Which needs time and the appropriate attention. No one's in the right headspace. We need to de-stress."
"Cobb," Arthur says, and his voice sounds a lot more strained now.
Cobb sighs, and gives Arthur a mostly unreadable expression. Ariadne can see a little bit of sadness, and a little bit of self-loathing, and a jumble of something else which passes between them like a secret handshake that makes Arthur's expression tighter than normal. If Ariadne didn't know Arthur, she wouldn't have noticed he's more stressed, but she recognises now that despite his mouth being almost permanently pressed into a thin line, there's a downturn to the right side that betrays how tense he's feeling.
"Amelia's been in a vegetative state for two years now. An extra week or two won't hurt her," Cobb says eventually. "Us being tense and unhappy might."
Arthur sags minutely, until Eames grins speculatively at him and Arthur makes this huff under his breath which is pretty terrifying. Ariadne tries not to hurry for her coat.
#
Cobb's idea of team bonding and relaxing is to go to the beach. It's one of the reasons why Ariadne doesn't mind being out in San Jose and not in a quaint Paris apartment which had been her plan for life for as long as she can remember.
Dreaming with the PASIV, doing a job with her team, and easy access to the sea, it's more than worth the sacrifice.
There's some sort of carnival-stroke-market thing going on today, which Cobb navigates successfully to a ratty looking food vendor which produces some surprisingly excellent stuff. Ariadne goes for it and comes out with a hamburger which she thinks she would possibly kill for and a corn dog. Eames has one too and immediately makes a lewd penis reference which Ariadne thinks is directly responsible for Arthur coming away with nothing but a bottle of water.
As they wander over the beach itself, Ariadne slipping off her shoes and socks long before they get to the sand and stashing them in her shoulder bag because she likes the feel of granite beneath her toes as much as she likes sand and the sea, Yusuf buys cotton candy for everyone.
Arthur's the only one to keep his in its plastic bag, and she watches it swing in his hand as they walk, distracted by the way the light glances from it. When she looks up, Eames is twisting his candy floss into ever-increasingly rude shapes, apparently for Arthur's benefit. Arthur only manages a fleeting smile when Eames shapes his candy into a cock and balls, unfortunately right in front of an appalled mother and her two seven-year old twin girls.
From Eames' example, and with her hamburger and corn dog settling into an uncomfortable rolling dog fight in the pit of her stomach, she leans against the metal railings separating the sand from the promenade, and starts creating a mini city with her candy floss. She sits cross legged on the sand, keeping her back to the railing, waiting for the queasiness to calm before she goes in the sea. She frowns as she pushes at her candy floss with her finger. Eames made it look so easy.
"Ever the architect," Cobb says, sitting down next to her. Yusuf is off paddling in the water already, but he has an iron constitution. Arthur, as ever, is hovering close to Cobb, and Eames casually joins in next to her, smiling in that knowing way he has that makes her feel like she's one of the crew, a sharp counterpoint to the way she's been feeling since Cobb announced the job.
That panic is still there, bubbling under the surface despite her new job role. Maybe especially with her job role, and the sinking feeling she's not going to manage the job anywhere near Arthur's standards.
She needs to change the direction of her thoughts before she ends up losing any more of her self esteem. The conversation reorients her and she shapes one of the candy towers into a pointed spire. "Not so much on this job, apparently."
"You'll get the hang of it," Cobb says comfortingly, rubbing his stomach absent-mindedly. The food had been too much for him too. Ariadne can't remember when she last ate before the hot vendor food, and maybe that's the problem they're all having, except for Arthur, who was smart enough to stick to water, who still has his candy floss bagged up at his side.
"Why did you pick me? In Paris," Ariadne says, out of nowhere. She didn't even realize the question had been bugging her until it's out of her mouth.
"Miles said you were his best student," Cobb says amicably with a shrug. He's squinting away from her, at the relatively busy beach for a Thursday afternoon, but maybe that's due to the market carnival thing. "I used to be his student, a long time ago. It's why I know he can pick out the best students, the ones with the aptitude for dreamsharing."
"Because he picked you," Ariadne says, and doesn't let his smugness go without an eye roll. "I meant... Why did he, why do you pick architect students for creating dream worlds?" Ariadne leans backwards, shading her eyes but glancing up at the sun regardless, squinting furiously. "Why not artists?" She glances to Eames to punctuate the thought, but Cobb responds.
"Artists do tend to have more imagination," Cobb allows, "but the few I've taken in... the world looks amazing, but the feel of it isn't there. The structure. Architects tend to dream up the same kind of beauty, but they remember to lay foundations in first. They put the basics in and build on them; they're not tempted to go backwards. It's a specialised kind of art that lends itself to dreamshare."
"Not that I'm trying to talk myself out of work-I'm just curious-but why not a writer, then? Some writers I've met are more visual than the artists I know. And they have to have structure in their work to fit plots in, beginnings, middles, ends..." Ariadne looks down from the sun, smiling oddly at the afterburn of flickering lights in her vision, thinking about trying to catch one but reigning the impulse in.
"Took one in once," Cobb says, with a shrug. "The world was delightful, dizzying, the most beautiful place I've ever been. Rich, full of life, full of imagination. We took the Mark down a level more and the second dream was as close to reality as you can get without using memories, and the Mark didn't believe it. Didn't really believe real life after that for a long time."
"More than that," Eames breaks in. Ariadne startles and then is embarrassed-she had almost forgotten he was there. That was one of his key talents. Chameleon. Slide into the background or into a key role, as much as required. Ariadne's glad Cobb doesn't want her to train as a forger, because it seems like it might be even harder work than training to be on point. "Too much imagination is a bad thing in our business."
"Too much?" Ariadne blinks, and it's not to dispel the after image of the sun dotting around the sky. "But you rib Arthur every day for not having any-"
Arthur bristles at the second-hand insult; Ariadne shoots him a look of apology. Eames grins, and obviously starts to think about how he can use other people to deliver his barbs and snide comments to Arthur. He looks delighted, and Arthur looks decidedly unimpressed.
On to part 2
Masterpost